What You Should Know About Behavioral Assessment

The article provides the reader with an introduction to behavioral assessment. The assumptions and methods of behavioral assessment are described and are then compared and contrasted with those of traditional assessment. Recent developments in behavioral assessments are reviewed. Two case examples illustrate many of the principles and methods of behavioral assessment that are discussed.     

APPLYING BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS TO CLINICAL PROBLEMS: REVIEW AND ANALYSIS OF HABIT REVERSAL

This article provides a review and analysis of habit reversal, a multicomponent procedure developed by Azrin and Nunn (1973, 1974) for the treatment of nervous habits, tics, and stuttering. The article starts with a discussion of the behaviors treated with habit reversal, behavioral covariation among habits, and functional analysis and assessment of habits. Research on habit reversal and simplified versions of the procedure is then described. Next the article discusses the limitations of habit reversal and the evidence for its generality. The article concludes with an analysis of the behavioral processes involved in habit reversal and suggestions for future research.     

Clinical applications of analogue behavioral observation: dimensions of psychometric evaluation

Clinical assessment applications of analogue behavioral observation are discussed in the context of psychometric principles. Analogue behavioral observation involves the measurement of a client's overt behavior in a contrived situation that is analogous to situations that the client is likely to encounter in his or her natural environment. The goal of analogue behavioral observation is to derive valid estimates of the client's behavior in a current or future natural environment. Analogue behavioral observation instruments are often developed with insufficient attention to their psychometric properties, particularly content validity. Psychometric evaluative dimensions vary in their importance, as a function of the goals of the assessment. Although analogue behavioral observation instruments can be sensitive to change, their validity can erode over time and is affected by numerous sources of variance. Analogue behavioral observation assessment may be especially useful in detecting important functional relations in clinical assessment.     

Behavioral assessment of personality disorders

This article examines the definition of personality disorders (PDs) from a functional analytical framework and discusses the potential utility of such a framework to account for behavioral tendencies associated with PD pathology. Also reviewed are specific behavioral assessment methods that can be employed in the assessment of PDs, and how information derived from these assessments may be linked to specific intervention strategies.     

Three applications of functional analysis with group dynamic cognitive behavioral group therapy

Case illustrations from group dynamic cognitive behavioral group therapy are presented to demonstrate three applications of functional analysis and the resulting cognitive behavioral interventions. The principles of group dynamic cognitive behavioral group therapy are explained. A functional analysis is applied first to the problem behavior of an individual group member. A clinical case illustrates how the group members help to change this individual group member's behavior from a learning theory perspective. Next, the circular interactional problem behavior between two group members is reduced to the individual functional analysis of each of the two member's problem behaviors. It is then illustrated how the two group member's problem behaviors, as well as feedback from others, contribute toward helping to change each others behavior. The paper concludes that functional analysis and ensuing behavioral interventions can be also applied to group as a whole behavior.     

ANTECEDENT INFLUENCES ON BEHAVIOR DISORDERS

The influence of antecedent events on behavior disorders has been relatively understudied by applied behavior analysts. This lack of research may be due to a focus on consequences as determinants of behavior and a historical disagreement on a conceptual framework for describing and interpreting antecedent variables. We suggest that antecedent influences can be described using terms derived from basic behavioral principles and that their functional properties can be adequately interpreted as discriminative and establishing operations. A set of studies on assessment and treatment of behavior disorders was selected for review based on their relevance to the topic of antecedent events. These studies were categorized as focusing on assessment of antecedent events, antecedent treatments for behavior disorders maintained by either positive or negative reinforcement, and special cases of antecedent events in behavior disorders. Some directions for future research on antecedent influences in the analysis and treatment of behavior disorders are discussed.     

THE WIDENING WORLD OF FUNCTIONAL ASSESSMENT: COMMENTS ON FOUR MANUALS AND BEYOND

An escalating number of materials have been published recently on the topic of functional assessment and assessment‐based behavioral interventions. We review four manuals that purport to provide practical guidance for conducting functional assessment. An examination of these manuals yields encouraging evidence that the field of behavioral support has made notable progress in adopting a functional (behavior‐analytic) approach to unwanted behaviors. The content of the manuals, considered in the context of emerging perspectives in behavioral support, suggests a number of important issues and directions that should be addressed by future functional assessment research and practice.     

Behavioral determinants of drug action. The contributions of Peter B. Dews

Peter B. Dews played a significant role in shaping the distinctive characteristics and defining the underlying principles of the discipline of behavioral pharmacology. His early and sophisticated use of schedules of reinforcement in the 1950s, incorporated from research in the experimental analysis of behavior and integrated into the discipline of pharmacology, provided tremendous insight, inspiration, and impetus to the newly emerging field of behavioral pharmacology. The experimental findings generated by Dews' research, blending the sophisticated use of behavior and pharmacological principles together with the elegant manner of their presentation and far-reaching implications, provided the force and momentum to establish and direct behavioral pharmacology for several decades. This article attempts to capture some of Dews' research that integrated and inspired the blending of sophisticated behavioral work with that of pharmacology.     

The likely success of functional analysis tied to the DSM

Nelson-Gray and Farmer argue that behavioral assessment and functional analysis may be beneficially applied to personality disorders (PDs). While this is a reasonable response to the largely non-behaviorally derived Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), it is not yet clear that grafting such theoretically incongruent elements will be viable. In essence, they argue that a syndromal classification system could serve a nomothetic role of guiding a functional, idiographic analysis. This is possible, but it seems unlikely that this process would remain in equilibrium, with no interactive effect of the functional analysis on the syndromes themselves. Yet the DSM system has shown itself to be surprisingly closed to a more functional approach, so the relationship between the DSM and functional analysis is not open in both directions. What is needed is a nomothetic level of analysis that is also functionally derived. The primary benefit of functional over syndromal categories is one of treatment utility, a concept that is itself surprisingly absent from the authors' otherwise comprehensive discussion of behavioral assessment.     

Explaining intra-individual variability in social behavior through idiographic assessment: The case of humor

Much variability in social behavior is intra-individual; people vary their actions strategically across contexts. Yet most personality assessment methods are inter-individual; they chart between-person differences in average behavioral tendencies. The present research advanced novel idiographic assessment methods to predict intra-individual variability in a behavioral domain of long-standing interest to personality psychologists: humor. Individuals participated in three assessment sessions. Personal beliefs about reasons for using humor were assessed either idiographically or with respect to a nomothetic system of humor-related reasons for action. The subjective relevance of nomothetically- and idiographically-identified reasons to everyday social situations was assessed. Subsequently, participants reported their perceived likelihood of using humor in specific social contexts. As predicted, likelihood of humor use varied substantially as a function of the relevance of situations to idiographically-identified reasons, but did not vary as a function of the relevance of situations to reasons identified nomothetically. Implications for personality and assessment are discussed.     

Principles of Occupational Therapy Group Outcome Assessment in Mental Health

In today's penurious health care climate, occupational therapists must scrutinize their practice and substantiate their interventions in order to remain viable service providers. This article proposes a method of occupational therapy outcomes assessment in mental health care that is rooted in client-centered functional outcomes. Since little consensus exists on which instruments are most effective, this article begins with an outline of broadly accepted principles for assessment of patient outcomes in mental health. Next, we describe a practical method for selecting outcomes measures in interdisciplinary settings. Finally, we offer pragmatic solutions to address barriers to outcome assessment.     

Cognitive Event-Related Potentials in Neuropsychological Assessment

Neuropsychology is a behavioral approach to studying the brain, and an integration of neuropsychology with on-line processing measures of brain function is important for advancing the understanding of brain–behavior relationships. Cognitive event-related potentials (ERPs) are on-line processing measures that are of interest to neuropsychologists because they are linked to familiar neuropsychological test paradigms and because they have reached a degree of standardization sufficient to make them applicable in individual assessment. A selective review of cognitive ERPs is given, focusing on studies of attention in the oddball paradigm and arguing that an adequate assessment of attention is basic in understanding higher order cognitive functions. General principles for using ERP data to supplement and clarify neuropsychological analysis are discussed, and available evidence on dementia and traumatic head injury is reviewed. It is concluded that ERPs are a useful supplement to neuropsychological assessment. Although diagnostic use of ERPs must be guarded because of limited standardization and validation, information-processing analysis with ERPs may aid significantly in interpretation of behavioral data.     

Conceptual,methodological, and clinical issues in cognitive-behavioral assessment

This article reviews cognitive-behavioral assessment principles and procedures. The functions of such assessments are noted, and issues and advances in cognitive assessment are discussed. The need for integrated cognitive, behavioral, and affective assessments is then explored. Finally, conceptual methodological, and clinical issues in the integration of assessments and study of reciprocal determinants are presented.Preparation of this paper was supported in part by a General Research Board Faculty Research Award from the University of Maryland. The author would like to thank Steve Graham, Donald Meichenbaum, Barbara Keogh, and Bernice Wong for their feedback during the preparation of this paper.     

Involuntary commitments to public mental institutions: issues involving the overrepresentation of blacks and assessment of relevant functioning

This article contributes to the debate in the mental health and legal systems concerning involuntary commitments to mental hospitals. The focus is on issues involving the overrepresentation of Black people among adults committed to U.S. public mental institutions and issues involving the assessment of relevant behavioral functioning in particular. Empirical findings, legal principles and procedures, and methodological limitations are reviewed to identify problems in current practice and relevant evidence bearing on those problems. Special emphasis is placed on the possible explanations for the overrepresentation of Blacks and on dependable assessments of relevant functioning that are needed to justify the state's coercive power to involuntarily confine people, regardless of race. The article concludes with a summary and recommendations for research and practice.     

Applying Luria's Diagnostic Principles in the Neuropsychological Assessment of Children

The first part of this article examines the theoretical justification for applying Luria's approach in the assessment of children. It is concluded that Luria's concepts of functional systems and the principle of specifying primary and secondary deficits may be applied to children. However, the selection of functional components to assess should be based on traditions of child neuropsychology rather than on Luria's assessment of adults. In addition, the tendency for comorbid disorders, mechanisms of neural adaptation to damage, and the prevalent types of brain abnormality in children render brain–behavior relationships more complex in children than in adults. The second part of the article describes how Luria's methods were adapted for use with children. An assessment, NEPSY, was developed by integrating Luria's views with contemporary child neuropsychological traditions. The NEPSY includes 27 homogeneous and psychometrically developed subtests, standardized in the United States and Finland for the age range of 3 to 12 years. The rationale of analyzing disorders of cognitive processes through a comprehensive and systematic assessment of their components, characteristic of Luria's approach, was preserved, but more specific principles of diagnosis were modified. Research findings obtained with a previously published, Finnish NEPSY version are presented.     

Some relationships between behavioral and traditional assessment

Psychometric principles and procedures were developed within the context of traditional approaches to assessment. In order to illustrate the frequent, if not uniform, applicability of these principles to behavior assessment, we first discuss the differences and similarities between traditional and behavioral assessment. We then point out ways in which, given the nature of behavior assessment, attention to certain psychometric principles and procedures would expedite the development of more adequate behavior assessment devices and procedures.     

Functional analysis skills training for residential caregivers

Functional analysis is the most effective assessment for identifying the maintaining contingencies of aberrant behavior. However, it is suggested that functional analyses are not conducted regularly due to the level of skill required. A multiple baseline design across participants was used to assess if four residential caregivers, with limited experience with applied behavior analysis, could be trained to implement the standard analog functional analysis conditions. The training consisted of a lecture, written information, modeling, rehearsal, and feedback. Results showed that all participants attained percentage correct responding scores above 95% on three consecutive trials following training. One caregiver showed positive generalization of skills to the assessment of another behavioral topography. The result of this study provides further evidence that lay individuals can be trained to assist in conducting functional analyses. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.